50 Seasons and three games later the Mets still do not have a no-hitter in their history, but today Jon Niese was the next in line to flirt with franchise history as Niese made it into the seventh inning without allowing a hit to a Braves hitter. The man with the base hit was first baseman Freddie Freeman who singled between Daniel Murphy and Ike Davis to break up the no-hit bid.
The game started off well for the Mets offensively in the bottom of the first as Ruben Tejada doubled deep off the base of the left field wall and advanced to second on a Murphy groundout. David Wright followed up with a sacrafice fly to center field to give the Mets the early 1-0 advantage. With the RBI, Wright moved within five RBI of tying Darryl Strawberry for the franchise record in runs batted in.
The Mets went down 1-2-3 in both the second and third innings as Niese kept the Braves at bay in the second third and fourth innings including a nasty sidearm curveball to get Michael Bourn looking ot start off the top of the third. In the bottom of the fourth the Mets loaded the bases with the first three batters which was followed by Jason Bay flying out middle depth to leftfield to bring home Murphy who led off the inning with a double. When Diaz threw the ball home it was cut off by Martin Prado who flipped to Jack Wilson covering third base who tagged David Wright trying to advance to third for some reason.
In the fifth the Mets offense scored a pair more to expand their lead to 4-0 as Niese helped his own cause by starting a two out rally with a base hit that narrowly hit the chalkline just beyond third base to stay fair. Tejada followed up with a single followed by Murphy getting a two out double to bring home to pair of Mets on base, the Braves walked Wright intentionlly to face Ike Davis which worked, getting Davis to fly out to left.
Bay walked to lead off the sixth inning followed by a Lucas Duda base hit to chase Braves starter Mike Minor from the game, Scott Hairston hit a double to bring around Bay. The next two batters struck out bringing up Tejada with two on and two out as the Mets’ shortstop hit a double to bring home the pair and put the Mets up by a touchdown.
Niese walked the first batter in the seventh before allowing the base hit to Freeman, the next two batters hit deep fly balls that both allowed the runners to reach and brought Niese’s day to an end. Manny Acosta came on next and allowed a sacrafice fly to the first batter and got the next two to strikeout and end the inning.
Brian McCann hit a one out home run in the top of the eighth that would have been out of the original Citi Field dimensions in right field and that turned out to be all the scoring the Braves could muster as Acosta got the next batter and lefty Tim Byrdak came on to retire the last batter of the inning.
Frank Francisco came on in the top of the ninth inning and set the side down in order to give the Mets their third win of the season against no loses thus far in 2012. Francisco is now 3-for-3 in save opportunities and is currently on pace to shatter Francisco Rodriguez’ single season save record of 62.
The Mets will look to keep the good times rolling tomorrow afternoon when they host Ryan Zimmerman and the Washington Nationals in the first night game at Citi Field this year with first pitch slated for 7:10 p.m. The probable starters are Mike Pelfrey for the Mets and Edwin Jackson for the Nats.
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